Ginny Weasley and the Vampire Slayers
by kookytree
Summary: Willow is the new Defence Against the Darks Arts teacher, and Ginny -in her fifth year- feels curiously strong...Involves Giles, Faith, Kennedy, Dru, Kendra, Buffy, Dumbledore, Darla, Amy, Dawn, Harmony, Vi, Hagrid, Ron and more.
1. Called

It was the last yawn of a long, hot summer, and despite the troubles of the previous school year, the Weasleys had enjoyed it immensely. Mr Weasley had gathered the family together on the first weekend and insisted that until September, there would not be so much as a hint of a black mood or scowling face within the Burrow. Fred and George had been conspicuously absent all summer; too busy with the mounting preparations for their new joke shop business in Hogsmeade to afford any time with their family. This was their excuse, anyway- Ron and Ginny both suspected the real reason for their absence was avoidance of their mother, who was not particularly pleased about their spectacular exit from Hogwarts earlier that year.

A relaxing summer, then, but a curiously slow one, stuffed with languid stretches where nothing at all seemed to happen, and permeated with a silence that did not become the usually bustling Burrow. With Ron and Ginny now the only Weasley children haunting the ramshackle house, family meals and outings took on a oddly muted tone, punctuated with try-too-hard attempts at polite conversation from their parents, typically answered with cursory grunts from the now-teenaged children.

But there was another reason for the quiet, contemplative nature the summer had taken on in the Weasley household. Ever since one odd night in August, Ginny Weasley had been feeling rather unlike her usual self.

It had started with a dream. Not the usual kind, but a frustrating, jutting, bitty mess of a dream, composed of sharp, disjointed images and short blasts of white sound. A girl. Blonde, petite, but strong somehow- her defiant stance and fierce little face triumphant, almost heroic. Another- this time a brunette, wielding what appeared to be a sharpened length of wood as she head butted some sort of monster and scissor-kicked another with a flair that betrayed experience. Another girl, oriental, her delicate face twisted grotesquely into a silent, rasping scream as one of the monster's sunk its teeth voraciously into her neck. They stood like this at length, curiously intertwined, as failing candelight flashed around them like a nightmarish strobe light, or a siren. It was then that Ginny heard the noise- a bellowing, ominous, un-human groan, like a starved stomach battering against its own walls, weeping in agony. It was, she knew instinctively, the sound of the Earth itself splitting ever so slowly in two. And then she saw them- from the gaping hole that was so woozily snapping the planet into pieces- thousands of jaggedly vicious creatures spilling from the cracks, like an army of bizarre, misshapen ants. They scuttled across the belly of the Earth, charging hungrily towards unseen targets, spitting and snarling, teeth bared. Even in her sleep, they filled Ginny with the sort of terror even Voldemort himself could not inspire; a deep, primordial dread that had been with humanity longer than fear itself. Yet, even with this fear, Ginny felt oddly adrenalised, as if the only thing she would like to do more than run from these very visions of Hell was kick them in the face. She was drawn to them as one dying of thirst is drawn to water- she found herself wishing, illogically, insanely, that she would wake, so that she could charge screeching from her home and throw herself at these creatures until there was nothing left of them but dust.

She woke, her eyelids darting apart from each other like repulsed magnets. She was drenched in a cold sweat and for no reason in particular wanted to scream- with fear, with confusion, with elation. The dream, instead of slipping immediately from her mind like water cupped in inept hands as most did, stayed maddeningly in focus, the images burned into the back of her head as when one looked directly at the Sun. She became aware, very suddenly, that she felt extremely uncomfortable in her own body, as if she had been lodged into the shell of another person. Her arms suddenly felt immensely heavy, her legs hard and lean and strong in a way they had never felt before. She tried, ever so carefully, to sit up, and found herself weighed down by the sudden might of her own torso. After much effort, she managed to force her right arm upwards, and almost recoiled at the sight before her. She watched the once pale, frail veins that traced down her slender arm bulge and tighten wildly, like snakes in the thrall of a charmer. Her forearms were grimacingly tightening themselves into muscular knots, and she had an irresistible urge to punch forwards. She did so, and felt her arm lance through the air like a knife through butter, swift and smooth. She raised the other arm with less effort this time, and punched forward again, with such vigour as to make thin air even thinner. Invigorated, she moved from her bed, and felt her bare feet hit the cold floor as if scolding it. She stood and felt this new strength lurch through her body like a drunken guest unaccustomed to its surroundings, pervading every bone and cell, equally frightening and electrifying. Slowly, she turned towards her wall, and punched it as lightly as she could. Nothing happened, but where as previously even this lightness would have hurt her delicate fists, this time she felt nothing other than an urge to punch again. She did so, harder this time, and again felt no pain. Almost chuckling and now confident in her own strength, she pulled back her arm like a tightened spring, then smacked her fist into the wall as hard as she could- then watched in horror as it went straight through, crumbling admittedly already decrepit bricks and causing a loud groaning sound to emit from the Weasley house.

_Shit_.

She heard confused talk from her parent's room above her and the sound of sleepy feet hitting the ground. She darted about her room, looking desperately for her wand. The sound of a door opening. The wand, it seemed was in none of her drawers. _Shit_,_ shit_,_ shit_! The footsteps were now crashing down the stairs. She threw open the doors of her wardrobe and tossed about everything; clothes, books, shoes, wand, toiletries…wait, wand! Triumphantly, she sprung up and pointed the wand like a barbed insult towards the gaping hole, which suddenly, sickeningly, reminded her of the monster-spitting gape in her dream. Desperately trying to clear her mind, she tried to think of the appropriate words.

"…Fixo?"

Nothing. The footsteps were coming closer and closer, until they suddenly stopped with a crash. Clearly, one of her parents had fallen over in their haste. This, at least, bought her some time.

"Um, ummm…."

It was no good, her mind was completely blank. If _only _she'd concentrated in lessons last year instead of staring longingly at random boys!

"Un…hole…o…?"

The hole looked at her sardonically, as if to say, 'Yeah, _that'll_ work.' She flitted through fond memories of the times David Jones had complimented her spell work and tried to think of the only person she knew who would be perfectly competent in this situation.

"What would Hermione do?" she whispered rhetorically. A memory…Harry's glasses had broken somehow…that was it!

"Reparo!" she shouted giddily, "That's it, reparo!"

Sulkily, as if her competence had spoiled its fun, the hole shrank until it was no more. Clutching her wand to her breast, Ginny dived into bed and pulled the covers over her just as a breathless Mr Weasley threw open her door, his wand outstretched.

"Ginny! Ginny are you alright? What was that? Death Eater?"

Ginny affected the grogginess of sleep and pulled off her covers, sitting up and making a show of rubbing her eyes.

"I…what, father? I'm confused?"

She instantly felt guilty for her brutishness- whilst the cobwebs of sleep were still dangled over Mr Weasley, he was desperately alert and worse- terrified. His mention of the Death Eaters had been the first mention of last year's events to occur all summer. Of course, all of the family had been thinking about Voldemort's return to full strength and what that entailed, but it wasn't until now that any of them had voiced such apprehension.

"A noise, Ginny, I heard a noise!"

"I didn't hear anything, dad, really," groaned Ginny, trying to sound weary. "It was probably just-"

At this point, Ginny was interrupted by a muffled thump at her window.

"There! You see!" Her father raced to the window and flung open her curtains, eyes flitting about maniacally in their sockets as he searched the muddy grey skies of early morning for any sign of an intruder. Suddenly, the thump again, and as he raised his wand, he saw that the object battering against the wall was in fact…

"An owl!" He squinted into the vague darkness as the owl now sat perched on the windowsill, a letter tied to its leg. Ginny, curious, got out of bed, forgetting all previous attempts of affected tiredness.

"It's a Hogwart's owl!" she exclaimed, immediately opening the window and allowing the regal bird to sniffingly stroll inside. Frantically, Ginny untied the letter and ripped it open, wondering what might be so important that Hogwarts would need to send a letter to her when school didn't start for weeks.

"Oh," she said bathetically, scanning through the pages for any dire warnings or urgent matters. "It's just one of those beginning of term letters they send out just before every year, telling you what books you need and stuff. But why would they send them out so early this year?"

Her father, who was stretching off the last remnants of sleep from his person, laughed incredulously at his young daughter and ruffled her strikingly orange hair affectionately.

"Early? Ginny, darling, the new year at Hogwarts starts in two days!"


	2. The Teacher And Her Unusual Assistant

The Hogwarts Express sat contentedly steaming in the familiarly worn tracks of Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, like a glistening wedding cake forming the centrepiece of a particularly busy reception. School children of assorted shapes and sizes swarmed across the heaving station, filling it with a churning sea of laughter, banter and excited conversation. The Sun was formless and distant, composed of watery lemons and the odd streak of buttery yellow, weak and irrelevant in a crisp, autumnal sky.

Towering over most of those bustling around the platform, a statuesque brunette sauntered breezily through the chest-level crowds like a plough bulldozing through snow, the tips of her long fingers in the grip of another, less assured woman. Nervously, this woman squeezed the brunette's hand tightly. "Kennedy? Are you sure we're in the right place?"

The taller woman turned to face the other, hints of a smile smudging the corners of her mouth. "I'm preeeetty sure, Will." She gestured to the 'Hogwart's Express' logo emblazoned on the train like a game-show hostess with a fridge-freezer, then jabbed a finger towards some twelve-year-olds who were using their wands to turn a caged owl into various shades of purple. "I think," she grinned, "that it's safe to say we're in the right place."

"Noo, that's not what I-I meant!" insisted Willow. "I mean, look!" She flapped her arms about like a newborn bird hopelessly trying to fly. "We're the only people here who aren't pupils or parents! M-maybe I got the wrong end of the stick and there's a separate train for teachers or something!" She waited agitatedly for the other woman to answer, becoming slightly confused when Kennedy merely stood there, gazing at her silently as if watching the sun set.

"Ken?" Willow whimpered at length. "What is it? Do I have something on my forehead?"

As she brushed maniacally at her forehead with her knuckles, Kennedy, moving forward, gently put both hands on Willow's shoulders as if to steady her. Then, she kissed her gently but firmly on the lips, allowing the plump softness of her own to glide over her lover's, silk on silk. Instantly, Willow felt calm and safe. She felt her mind drift, eyes glaze and tongue wander. Her arms slid around Kennedy's slender waist, and she purred gently, impossibly content until she heard the hisses of spitefully incredulous laughter. Instantly, the impropriety of her behaviour slapped her around the face, and she pushed herself away from Kennedy, sweeping back the hair from her face, her cheeks burning.

She turned to see a group of kids looking and pointing at her from beside the train. All looked to be in their mid-teens. The ringleader appeared to be an Aryan boy with too-bright, white-blond hair and a look of supercilious arrogance spread smugly over his face. He was whispering something to a huge hulk of a boy beside him as he looked directly at Willow, almost daring her to maintain eye-contact. Willow instantly disliked him. In front of him stood a toxic looking young lady who was cackling patently fake laughter and shrieking something about 'lezzas'. Kennedy squeezed her jaw and began to storm over to the puddle of adolescents, but Willow grabbed her, holding her back.

"Ken, leave it," she begged, barely above a whisper. Kennedy did so, spitting the group one long, threatening look before spinning around on her heel and sweeping off towards the front of the train, her mane of long, dark hair billowing majestically in the wind. She stayed pointedly ahead of Willow until reaching the train, at which point she turned to face her girlfriend, looking as if she was chewing a wasp.

"Ken…" Willow began, "I know it's hard sometimes, but you just have to accept that not everyone is okay with stuff like this."

"Stuff like what!?" Kennedy growled. "Stuff like two people being in love?"

"Stuff like teachers kissing nubile young hotties," smiled Willow. "I'm a teacher now. I must be prim and proper at all times." She nodded as Kennedy threw her a withering look. "No really, it's in the rulebook they gave me. Right alongside the part where we have to spit on the kids in the first few rows as we talk, a-and covert to lesbianism if we're teaching gym."

Kennedy couldn't help let as smile crack through her angry façade, though it faded almost instantly. "It just irritates me. I refuse to hide who I am from anyone."

"But, see, honey? That's the thing. This is my first job…ever! And I know Giles said that they were desperate for a Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, but I think he was just saying that so I'd be less nervous. I mean, Hogwarts is internationally renowned- it's one of the most prestigious schools of magic there is! I can't screw this up, and the fact is…they're conservative. About a lot of things- not just sexuality, I've told you before, they can't even know that-"

"That I'm a Slayer" recited Kennedy, affecting a pointedly bored tone. "I know, Will. I've heard it a thousand times. They don't trust Slayers, or werewolves, or anything vaguely non-human. Wait, not non-human. Super-human. And I'm fine with that. I'll pretend I'm just 'your lovely assistant'. Hey, I'll even try not to mack you during classes. But I will _not_ hide my sexuality. I did that for too long, and that way leads only to Screwed-Up-ville, twinned with Closet Town."

"Okay, okay", said Willow, desperately trying to soothe her as she noticed that the two were drawing attention to themselves- not least because the obnoxious girl who had been laughing at them was now pointing to them and talking excitedly to a huddle of grown-ups. "I'm not saying hide. The staff can know, I think Dumbledore already does. But just…no more kissing in front of pupils, okay?"

Kennedy stood silently for a long time. Then, as if nothing had happened, she cheerfully sang, "Okay!" jumping on board the train. Just as the door was about to close, she asked, putting a finger to the corner of her mouth with faux-naivety; "Wait, does that mean second base is off limits, too?"


	3. A Brief Encounter

It had been an hour since the Hogwart's Express had left it's platform and, thankfully, Kennedy had not yet started fondling Willow in their compartment. Indeed, the only noteworthy event had been when a puzzled fifth year had asked Willow, with some disdain, if she was 'a Weasley'. Willow, having no idea what a Weasley was –but guessing that it probably wasn't the most positive of adjectives- threatened to give the boy a detention if he insulted her again, leading to him backing away cautiously and muttering something sulkily about the touchiness of Americans.

Within the first half an hour, Willow had fallen asleep, curling herself up on her seat and snuggling her head onto Kennedy's lap. They were the only people in their compartment, so Kennedy thought it safe to gently stroke her lover's red hair, now laced with strands of silvery-white after a spell she had performed on a scythe earlier that summer had momentarily turned her hair completely white. Kennedy envied Willow's ability to fall asleep so easily; she was extremely tired after their long trip from California to England, but inexplicable butterflies in her belly were making her feel queasily alert. This was what Buffy called her 'Slayer sense,' and for some reason it was kicking into overdrive. Willow had theorised that it was probably all the magic, quite literally, in the air causing her natural instinct as a Slayer to hone in on the supernatural haywire, but Kennedy wasn't so sure. Though she couldn't explain it or back it up, she knew instinctively that danger was brewing.

As Kennedy mused on this, she locked eyes with a young girl passing their compartment. Her heart skipped a beat- for a moment she thought she was looking at Willow. Then she remembered both that her Will was lying comfortably beside her, and that Willow had once told her that she had a vampiric doppelganger from another dimension. Jumping to her feet, she opened the door and prepared herself to grab the stake she always kept in a sheath in her boot.

"Who are you?" she demanded, noting that, close-up, the girl did not look all that like Willow. Whilst she had the same flame-coloured hair, pale, freckled complexion, and cute button nose, she was more fresh-faced and younger-looking than her lover, not to mention more sturdy and athletic.

"Ginny Weasley," said the Willow-alike, eyebrow raised, neck snaked. "Who are _you_?"

"I'm Kennedy, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts assistant- not that's it's any of your business, young lady," she snapped. It seemed slightly farcical to call her this seeing as there couldn't be more than five years in age difference between the two young women, but Kennedy never skipped a chance to be abruptly authoritative. "Why aren't you in your compartment?"

"It's called a toilet?" sassed Ginny sarcastically, "Or, as you Americans might incorrectly term it, a_ bathroom_." She said this last word with an overdone Valley Girl accent. Kennedy liked this girl. "So, if you're the assistant, where's the teacher?"

Kennedy gestured towards where Willow was sleeping, explaining her napping as the product of a brutally long trip. "She looks kind of young to be a teacher" noted Ginny, "especially a Defence Against the Dark Arts one. I'd have thought they'd get someone less…frail, for _that _job."

Intrigued, it was Kennedy's turn to raise an eyebrow, and she gestured for Ginny to sit down as she jumped back down onto her seat, gently tilting Willow up so that she was leaning against the wall in an upright position.

"Explain?"

Thus ensued a long, fiendishly gory tale of the bad luck of Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers at Hogwarts. "Some even say that the job is cursed," finished Ginny, smacking her lips with relish.

"Geez, no wonder they were desperate for a replacement. Who'd want a cursed job!?" noted Kennedy.

"Well, there is someone actually. Professor Snape- I'd tell your friend to avoid him if she wants an easy life. You too for that matter."

"I'm pretty sure I can handle some old professor" said Kennedy brusquely, wrinkling her nose with amusement. She liked this Weasley girl. She reminded her a little of Faith, the most experienced Slayer after Buffy, who was a spunky little fireball of exuberance. In fact, not only did she remind her of Faith, but Kennedy was sure she had met or seen this girl before…

"Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked, frowning. "I swear, I don't recognise you, but you give me a weird sense of, like, déjà vu."

"You know," said Ginny, smiling, "I was just thinking exactly the same thing. I _do_ recognise you, though. Would you have been in any textbooks at Hogwarts?"

Kennedy snorted. "I doubt it. This one might have been though." She nudged Willow playfully with her foot, an oddly proud look on her face. "She's one of the world's best witches."

"Oh, really!?" Ginny explained. "Wow, what family is she from?"

There was a silence.

"Um, the Rosenbergs?"

This time it was Ginny's turn to frown. "Hmm. That's odd. I don't think I've ever come across a Rosenberg. Even though you're American, every magical family has British relatives somewhere."

"Ohh," Kennedy said, realising the misunderstanding. "No, no, Willow's not from a magical family."

If Ginny had been drinking a drink, Kennedy was certain that at this revelation she would have promptly spat it out. "Not…from a magical family!? You mean they've appointed a _mudblood_ as a teacher!?"

Kennedy, not entirely uncomfortable with this odd new term, gave the girl a withering look. "No. They've appointed _Willow_as a teacher."

"No no, don't get wrong", spluttered Ginny, trying to backtrack, "there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a mudblood- in fact I never use that word, it's a horrible thing to be called, I just- I was shocked. They're usually very traditional and old-fashioned about stuff like that; a lot of the parents get funny about it. Especially since Dumbledore made a werewolf Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher a couple of years ago. Didn't go down well, let me tell you. It's great, though, great- in fact the best witch I know isn't from a wizarding family…aaaand I'm babbling."

Ginny sat back in her chair, her face almost as red as her hair in total embarrassment.

"It's okay," said a smiling Kennedy. "I'm new to all this so thanks for the heads up."

Despite Kennedy's reassurance, for a while the only sound in the compartment was the rhythmic pounding of the wheels on the tracks, and the shallow, regular breaths of a sleeping Willow.

"So," ventured Ginny, trying to redeem herself, "what's yours and Willow's experience with the Dark Arts?"

Kennedy sighed. What a question. She knew she couldn't betray her Slayerhood on strict orders from Willow, but she wasn't about to lie about her past, not least because she was awful at it. "Me and Willow have been demon hunters for a while, actually. Mostly vampires, but some other ooky stuff, too. Willow's been doing it a _lot_ longer than me, though- for almost eight years now, actually. I've been involved all my life but I never actually fought vampires one-on-one 'til about a year ago."

"You mean," gasped Ginny, for once all her easily haughty self-assurance drained from her face and voice, "you've actually _fought _a vampire!?"

"And more" grinned Kennedy, pleased by the impressed look on the young girl's face after a year of casual indifference to supernatural fiends in Sunnydale.

"Wow! Not even Harry's done that!" Ginny exclaimed.

"Harry…?"

"Never mind, long story. Seriously though, vampires!? Some people don't even think they exist!"

It was as Ginny Weasley made this naïve statement that the Hogwart's Express suddenly came screeching to a halt, the lights simultaneously cutting out, plunging the compartment into darkness. Further down the carriageway, a distant scream of fright sliced through the train like a knife.

"Oh," said Kennedy rising, whipping the stake from her anklet holster and stretching her muscles in grim preparation. "They exist."


End file.
